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Pineapple is more than a pina colada ingredient or a splash of yellow in the fruit salad bowl -- it's a nutritional powerhouse whose high concentration of vitamins, minerals, fiber and chemical compounds may enhance your health. Medical research indicates that the dietary benefits of some of pineapple's compounds include supporting digestive and immune system functions, inhibiting potentially harmful tissue inflammation and possibly suppressing the growth of cancerous cells. However, more research is needed. Do regularly include pineapple along with other fruits and vegetables in your daily diet -- 1 cup of raw, cooked or canned pineapple counts as a serving -- but do not attempt to treat or prevent any medical condition with pineapple.

Antioxidant Activity

A single 165-gram serving of pineapple contains 131 percent of the recommended daily allowance of vitamin C for healthy adults. Vitamin C is a powerful antioxidant that can prevent free radical compounds from damaging DNA. The University of Maryland Medical Center reports that vitamin C's antioxidant may help slow the development of atherosclerosis and decrease the risk of hypertension. In addition, a 2001 study published in the scientific journal "Alternative Medicine Review" concluded that vitamin C, in conjunction with other antioxidant compounds like vitamin A and vitamin E, may help prevent age-related macular degeneration. As a rich source of all three of these antioxidants pineapple, eaten regularly, may be beneficial for eye health.

Digestive System Benefits

In 2008, Duke University researchers determined that supplementing with extracts of the enzyme bromelain may help decrease the risk of developing the inflammatory bowel disorder ulcerative colitis. Bromelain is found only in the fruit pulp and stem of pineapple. The researchers hypothesized that bromelain helped decrease the incidence of colitis by inhibiting the digestive tissue-damaging autoimmune response that causes the colon sores characteristic of the condition. The researchers later cautioned, however, that since their study used only bromelain extracts and not fresh pineapple, further studies are needed to determine if eating the fruit has the same effect on the digestive system.

Inflammation Inhibition

Bromelain's anti-inflammatory properties may also make eating pineapple an effective way of dealing with arthritis and asthma symptoms. Research indicates that bromelain supplementation combined with other supplemental compounds like trypsin and rutosid may be as effective as commonly prescribed non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs at decreasing painful inflammation in osteoarthritis sufferers. Asthma is also caused, in part, by tissue inflammation, and research conducted in 2005 indicated that bromelain may be able to inhibit tissue swelling in the lungs and airways of asthmatics. None of the studies focusing on bromelain's anti-inflammatory effects have used dietary pineapple, and scientists caution that beneficial effects may be noticeable exclusively with supplementation.

Cancer Inhibition

A number of scientific studies have documented the direct effect that bromelain has on cancerous cells. One study, published in the "Journal of Cancer Research and Clinical Oncology," found that mice fed a diet supplemented with bromelain experienced a decrease in the growth and metastasis of lung cancer cells. Another study that focused on bromelain's effect on breast tumors found that the enzyme could cause breast cancer cell death. While these results are promising, the American Cancer Society points out that there is no data to show that eating pineapple can affect the survival rate of cancer patients.

About the Author

Michelle Kerns writes for a variety of print and online publications and specializes in literature and science topics. She has served as a book columnist since 2008 and is a member of the National Book Critics Circle. Kerns studied English literature and neurology at UC Davis.